On the Tyranny of Burst Windows

[Kyrj]

Give it a few patches or an expansion, I'm sure they'll prune them all away like everything else in this game.

[PangTong]

It is weird. I dunno if I would go as far as to remove all party damage buffs but certainly removing or toning down the perfect alignments and crazy multiplicative effects they have on damage. It's straight up strange to me that high end players end up doing stuff like making sure they have the exact perfect GCD speed tuned to the hundreths of a second to make sure they can hit all their buffs the literal millisecond they come off cooldown so that they can all still be synced up with each other even 8 minutes into a fight. Even the ability to know exactly what skill you'll be using at any given second, even hundreds of seconds into the future because of how planned out and deterministic rotations are, is weird.

I generally don't mind jobs having burst windows but yeah recently I feel that many have been forcibly shaped to fit in the 120s mold and as a result their personal rotations are lacking. Too many rotations are essentially dead air between burst windows. Frankly though I don't see this changing, too much effort has been invested into this design to change course now.

[baklava151]

Frankly though I don't see this changing, too much effort has been invested into this design to change course now.

Also a good point, doing an overhaul for possibly a ton of classes wouldn't be a small feat and who knows if Yoshi even thinks it would be worth it. Still worth bringing up and discussing though.

[Kolsykol]

While I did like TA a lot on NIN and the frequency of it.
Part of me does kinda dislike party buffs too and would kinda want it to be personal buffs instead.
I do think it's a bit restrictive in terms of design and does have some negative impacts.

I am not saying that I feel super strongly about it and I am definitely not saying that Jobs like DNC for example shouldn't have it.
I guess that perhaps I think that too many Jobs have it.
Why does every melee except for SAM need to have it?
I wonder what the game and the Job design would look like if we only had a handful of Jobs that had party buffs instead of almost everyone.

In a way it makes it less special for those who have it too.
Mug is just a less fun Brotherhood and Arcane Circle.
Brotherhood gives Chakra and Arcane Circle gives Plentiful Harvest, both are more fun than the Ninki from Mug and TA is only like two extra GCD's with 5% buff.
The buffs for MNK and RPR makes their rotations more strictly looped while also diminishing the uniqueness of NIN.
I am actually kinda upset about it, it feels like NIN lost our niche of a 60s buff.
I am not talking about balance and numbers but in regards to gameplay it's just the same now with Mug but boring.
TA is still there but it's personal which makes it not utility it's kinda ridiculous how far NIN has fallen in regards to utility looking back I mean both MNK and RPR have defensive utility on top of the DMG... NIN has nothing.

I'd just rather have like NIN, DNC, BRD and RDM be the utility/ buff dps and a more varied utility toolset too.
And less restrictive and so harshly looped mechanics and rotations for the rest.

[Frodnoxx]

It really looks like raid dmg buffs are well on their way to becoming role actions. I know a lot of people like to consider it teamwork and alignment when their 5% buff and burst lines up with others' but to me it makes me feel like just another cog in the machine and makes saying "I bring a dmg buff" very inconsequential and more of an expectation of you rather than a bonus. Like interviewing for a construction site and saying, "I have hands".

It's true that at this point a damage buff is the only form of "utility" that most classes bring with the most notable exceptions bring RDM rezes and SCH expedience. I started playing in ShB but from I know once upon a time classes had other utility like AoE Esuna, the ability to give others MP, etc. But they were pruned because of imbalance I guess? I understand that homogenization is by far the easiest and most effective way to solve imbalance, but it comes at a big cost which seems more impactful to some than others. I want nothing more than SE to keep experimenting with things like Expedience, and I know they have the creativity for it because they have shown it in the past, AND in PvP today. They just need to put in the effort to balance it rather than sterilize when things look ugly.

[SieyaM]

This does get at the heart of the design issue, right now with the current design of having all jobs with a 2 or one minute burst window means a lot of things are already predetermined for a job before anything else about it. That means any damage buffs it gets will be on this cool down, at least one if not more high damage abilities will also be on this cool down and their rotation and other skills will be on cooldowns designed to work up to or within this window. That does not leave a lot of room for creativity when a jobs rotation is pretty much already set by time constraints imposed by burst windows.

[Roxus]

I just came here to say I agree with you.

I don't have much to add except a comment about FF11. I feel like they wanted something close to what skillchains were and this was their solution to make party play look important. I'd like things besides damage to start mattering again.

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

Job rotations aren't contorted around that, but, if you do your rotation well, if you just use your party buffs in the opener and reuse it when it's available, you'll 90% of the time be in sync with the other party buffs... Don't make an issue out of something that easy, especially when syncing is only useful in savage and ultimate, where you're supposed to know what you're doing anyway.

And what would you get from removing those from the game ? Rotations won't change, since jobs aren't designed around them. Make them disappear, rotations will stay the same, and worse, people will still use them at the exact same timings, since that's already the most optimal timing for using them. That will just lower the dps of classes that rely on them, like DRG or SMN.

[KurohNeko]

Like, burst windows and shit only really apply for end-game savage content. 99% of the game it doesn't matter at all and you can have everyone playing sub-optimally and be just fine. Only savage where you need that party synergy.

Think a better solution is not make every class dps and go a more traditional role with jobs serving functions that don't require a damage sync or doing damage itself but are more party based with unique functions beyond "this button make other DPS number go up". How about some stuns or blindness or elemental effects against bosses rather than players. Why can't machinists set landmines that blowup when an enemy stands on them leading to tanks luring enemies over and leading to more engaging fights rather than just avoid glowie circles.

[Syln]

Or they could insanely buff those skill and make them usable only once per fight to counter dps check or deal faster with harder phase.

But yeah i agree with you, burst window is just annoying and even scuffed most of the time in duty finder.